1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a starter adapted for a cantilever-type mounting on an engine-side body via a fitting part of a housing.
2. Related Art
A starter for an engine is generally designed to be mounted on an engine-side body such as an engine block or an engine ring gear housing in a cantilever manner by press-fitting its housing tightly into a fitting hole formed on a fitting plane of the engine-side body and fastening its flange to the fitting plane via bolts.
As an engine in an automotive vehicle is run at higher speeds which will cause larger vibration and an increasing number of auxiliary equipment reduces space in the engine compartment recently, a starter is required to be more vibration-resistant, compact and powerful. To meet those requirements, a starter having a speed reduction mechanism is provided. In the case of using an external gear engagement type reduction mechanism, the cantilever-type mounting is not resistant enough to the vibration because the starter output shaft and the starter motor having relatively large weight are not aligned coaxially. In the case of using an epicycle reduction gear mechanism, the output shaft and the motor can be aligned coaxially. However, as the epicycle reduction gear mechanism is located between the output shaft and the motor, the motor having relatively large weight is necessarily located away from the fitting plane of the engine-side body. As a result, the vibration resistivity is not satisfactory either.
To improve the resistivity to the vibration, JP-U 63-65861 proposes to provide a stay on a rear cover of a starter and to mount the starter by fixing the rear cover to the engine-side body via the stay as well as fixing a housing of the starter. This starter, however, necessitates the stay as an additional part on the starter and a fixing part on the engine-body side for the stay. The stay further requires additional space in the engine compartment degrading mountability of the engine to the engine-side body.